Can you drink alcohol while breastfeeding? Rules for "safe" use. Beer while breastfeeding: dubious benefits or irreparable harm

Are breastfeeding mothers allowed to drink beer while breastfeeding? Surprisingly, even with all the evidence of the harm of alcoholic beverages, opinions are divided: some believe that beer can be useful. This opinion is based on the fact that beer does contain some useful components and vitamins. However, fusel oils, which also contain beer, neutralize all the beneficial properties of this drink.

Does beer help with lactation?

Doctors say that beer absolutely does not contribute to increased lactation. The rush of milk after drinking beer is explained by the fact that after drinking beer, liquid can indeed accumulate in the tissues. The breastfeeding mother feels the filling of the breast, the baby sucks the breast with all her might, but the milk is hardly supplied to him.

Why is this happening?

Beer during breastfeeding really provokes an increased production of the hormone necessary for lactation - prolactin. And oxytocin, which allows milk to fill the ducts of the mammary gland, decreases under the influence of beer. Therefore, milk is produced in increased quantities, but the child has great difficulty in sucking.

A nursing mother should know: beer, even drunk in the smallest dose, will harm the baby. Some women continue to drink alcohol little by little, making no move to change their bad habits, even while breastfeeding. Such women need to refrain from beer at least in the first three months after the birth of the baby, and not to combine feeding and drinking alcohol.

There is a misconception that non-alcoholic beer does not cause any harm to the child. However, this is also misleading. The production of this drink involves the use of dyes, flavors, preservatives, which are harmful not only to children, but also to adults. Sugar, which is contained in non-alcoholic beer even in larger quantities than in alcoholic beer, increases blood glucose levels, and this can lead to the development of obesity, diabetes, heart and vascular diseases.

About self-hypnosis. What happens after drinking beer?

Among modern mothers, there are many who can drink and smoke, considering this a manifestation of their own independence. However, they should not later express bewilderment why the baby is prone to frequent diseases. It has long been proven that everything that a nursing mother consumes is transmitted to the child. Therefore, if a nursing mother still allowed herself to drink alcohol, then it is better to breastfeed no earlier than three hours after drinking it.

Experienced mothers can give examples from life when, after drinking alcohol, they became more relaxed, and the child was also calm. In fact, opposite processes occur in the body of mother and baby.

The mother could not resist, drank alcohol and soon feeds the child. In the process of feeding, he falls asleep, the mother relaxes, feeling some kind of euphoria.

The hormone oxytocin slows down the production of milk, and she again feels breast fullness. The child tries to suck milk, but it comes to him with difficulty, and the baby soon refuses the breast, without having eaten. He sleeps not at all because he was full, but under the influence of alcohol.

This gives rise to a false belief that after beer the child is more likely to be satiated and behave calmer.

To increase lactation, it is not necessary to achieve this by such extreme measures. Milk can come with positive emotions, after a warm shower or a fragrant relaxing bath, from hot tea with milk or lactation teas with fennel and chamomile.

Any of the above remedies are harmless, and this should be guided first of all when trying to establish lactation or achieve relaxation. Beer while breastfeeding can not be useful! Self-hypnosis, when a nursing mother gives in to thoughts that alcohol is good, in reality causes devastating harm to her and the child.

Why do breastfeeding mothers sometimes crave beer?

If the mother never felt a particular craving for beer, but during the period of breastfeeding she wanted to drink a glass, then this is due to a lack of vitamins. Bread beer aroma is recognized by the body as a source of B and D vitamins. Therefore, it is necessary to review your diet and enrich it with the missing trace elements and vitamins. Bran, whole grain bread, fruits, greens, vegetables, meat and dairy products are sources of nutrients that a nursing mother should consume.

Beer while breastfeeding

Despite all the prohibitions, every seventh woman who breastfeeds drinks alcohol. Therefore, doctors have developed special rules, the observance of which minimizes the risk of alcohol exposure to the baby's body.

If you still cannot resist, and decide to drink beer, you must follow these rules:

Before use, feed the child, and after drinking beer, refrain from feeding for two hours to protect the child's body from alcohol.
If you get drunk quickly, then beer should not be consumed while breastfeeding, as your body does not have the enzymes to absorb it.
The less you weigh, the slower alcohol will be removed from your body. Keep this in mind when timing your next feeding.
Until the age of three months, the child's digestive system has a small amount of enzymes that are unable to cope with aggressive substances that have come to him through mother's milk. Therefore, observe the ban on the adoption of alcoholic beverages at least during this period.
Live kvass and kefir contain as much alcohol as light beer, and drinking these drinks will be much more beneficial. If the craving for alcohol increases, this is a dangerous symptom that can serve as a signal for the onset of alcoholism, and female alcoholism is considered an intractable problem.
If you decide to try beer in the form of a drink that improves lactation, then it is better to replace it with tea, juice, water.
If you can’t resist drinking alcohol, then express yourself before drinking and prepare milk for the next feeding. After drinking alcohol, it is better not to feed the child for about a day.
In no case should you drink beer on an empty stomach, so as not to get drunk quickly, so alcohol will take longer to be removed from your body.

A nursing mother cannot risk the health of her own child. Any beer while breastfeeding is harmful to the baby, and you should not drink it.

Hello dear mothers. We continue to talk about what foods can be consumed while breastfeeding and what not. Today, the matter will concern such, at first glance, a harmless alcoholic drink as beer. You will learn how this drink can harm, what happens in the body if a woman drank beer during guards, and how to protect yourself if you cannot live without this intoxicating drink.

Beer - pros and cons

Positive aspects of use:

The high content of vitamin B1 helps restore vitality, improves metabolic processes in the body, and normalizes the tone of blood vessels and skin.
A large amount of vitamin B2 has a regenerative ability to restore the skin.
Vitamin D2 can be formed in small amounts. Strengthens bones and teeth.

However, the cons are much more significant, and outweigh all the possible benefits of this drink.

Contains fusel oils and alcohol, which can cause irreparable harm to both the health of the mother and the child.
The composition includes flavorings, preservatives, flavoring additives, which can in no way be useful for your body.
Yeast can cause flatulence and colic in a baby.

So it turns out that the advantages are clearly not enough for this drink to appear in the diet of a young mother. And if you have a friend who says: “I drink beer while breastfeeding, but nothing bad happens,” do not believe her, although she herself may not yet be aware of all the consequences of her act. In addition, there is such a thing as the accumulation effect. Perhaps, beer did not immediately make itself felt, but it will take a couple of months, a maximum of six months, and everything will change, but it will be too late.

If this happened and a young mother really wants beer, this does not mean that she has an increased need for this particular product. It can easily be replaced with whole grain bread and bran.

When and how much to drink

I would like to write that never and not for how long, until mommy weaned the baby from the breast. But, unfortunately, hardly anyone will listen to me. If you have already decided that beer must certainly be in your diet, then you should understand that before the baby is four months old, you should absolutely not drink an intoxicating drink. The child's digestive system is just finishing its development. And with your early introduction, you can only aggravate the situation and affect the functioning of the digestive tract, and do not forget that your little one already suffers from pain in the tummy in the first months of his life.

As for the volume, you should not drink more than 250 ml of beer per day, even non-alcoholic.

Is it possible to drink beer while breastfeeding

The answer to such a question is obvious. It is impossible for a young mother to drink any alcoholic beverages. But it happens that a woman is not able to deny herself such pleasure. In such cases, she must know and adhere to the rules for its use.

Talk about the fact that a beer drink increases lactation is already considered a myth. So it turns out, why poison yourself with alcohol? You say that it still has some useful properties, such as vitamins and minerals. But you must understand that there are other products that contain a similar, if not better, vitamin and mineral complex. And if you just really like the taste of beer, then it's better to drink natural kvass. You will not harm the baby with them. Although this drink should not be abused.

I don't drink, and I don't drink beer. I don't even like the smell of it. But I completely excluded all alcoholic beverages from my diet for the period of feeding, because the health of my son is the most valuable thing for me.

How long does the drink stay in milk?

After drinking beer, a woman should understand that after a maximum of 30 minutes, alcohol will enter her bloodstream and milk. This period is extremely dangerous for breastfeeding. Alcohol can be excreted from breast milk at different times. It depends on the amount drunk, and on the weight of the mother, and on how full the woman's stomach was at that time. On average, it takes up to four hours for the process of removing beer decay products from the mother's body. During this time, your baby will already have time to get hungry. Therefore, it is important to feed him immediately before drinking an intoxicating drink. And it’s very good if you also express before that, providing the baby with milk for one more meal. And so that mommy has enough time to be completely sure that there is no alcohol in her body.

Non-alcoholic beer while breastfeeding

Some mothers believe that you can drink a soft drink, but it does not contain alcohol. In fact, it is there, albeit in almost imperceptible concentrations. But here another problem arises. Such a drink almost always contains preservatives, flavors, flavors. And they will not be able to have a positive impact on the health of the baby.

Safe Use Rules

First of all, a mother should think about how to benefit her little one, resist all harmful factors and take care of her baby's health.

Does regular beer affect milk flow in a breastfeeding mother? Many young mothers succumb to rumors that the foamy drink activates the lactation process, helping to increase the amount of milk. The question is not random. This drink is a diuretic product. But is beer good for lactation?

There is no medical or scientific evidence that this alcoholic drink improves milk flow. True, there are many useful substances in beer. But due to the harmful elements contained in its composition (fusel oil, ethylene alcohol), the use of this drink does more harm to nursing mothers than good.

How to explain the rush of milk after drinking a mug

The flow of milk is provided by the hormone oxytocin, which is produced in large quantities in the body of a woman. This happens in the following cases:

Beer does not have any miraculous properties. The amount of milk may increase after drinking beer as a result of dilation of blood vessels. The drink is alcoholic and has a relaxing effect, which promotes the production of oxytocin and leads to a rush of milk.

The composition of the drink does not have any positive effect on milk production. On the contrary, frequent drinking of beer leads to blockage of the milk ducts, as a result of which the milk will disappear. This will force the baby to switch to artificial nutrition.

Is non-alcoholic beer safe?

There is an opinion that a non-alcoholic product has the same taste, and ethyl alcohol, unlike ordinary alcohol, is absent. It has been proven that it is impossible to completely get rid of harmful alcohol substances. Although it is present in smaller percentages (0.5%), it is still present in the drink. On top of that, in order to obtain the usual beer taste, chemical flavors are used in production, which harm the children's body.

This is a carbonated drink, so its use by a nursing mother increases gas formation in the baby. Non-alcoholic beer while breastfeeding has another danger. It contains a lot of sugar, which affects the blood glucose level in an infant. This leads to the following consequences:

The risk of heart disease increases.
There is a risk of diabetes and obesity.
There is a deficiency of chromium.
Weakens the immune system.
Mental health is at risk.

Effects of beer on children

When a nursing woman drinks beer, alcohol enters the child's body, the baby gets drunk and quickly falls asleep. The mother gets the idea that the amount of milk has increased, the child has eaten enough and that is why he fell deeply asleep. This is a misconception.

After taking alcohol, milk begins to flow poorly, since under the influence of ethyl alcohol the proportion of oxytocin in the blood decreases, and the flow of milk is blocked. The breast seems full, the baby begins to suck more actively, but sucks out less milk.

As a result, he gets tired, does not eat up, plus everything gets drunk and falls into a deep sleep. This leads to the fact that the child begins to gain weight poorly. The duration of this process leads to the following consequences:

The weight of the child is not added.
His development is deteriorating.
More often suffers from viral and bacterial diseases.
Loses appetite, which is explained by the bitter taste of beer in milk. Many babies refuse breastfeeding because of this.
CNS suppressed.
An addiction to alcohol is formed.

The presence of vitamins in beer

A pleasant intoxicating drink contains B vitamins that restore damaged skin. They also contribute to the rapid healing of uterine tissues. Vitamin B2 activates the healing of cracked nipples in a nursing mother. Vitamin B1 helps the body recover after a difficult birth. Vitamin D contained in beer is useful in the formation of bones and teeth in an infant.

It turns out that the foam product is useful? Given the harmful effects of its use, it immediately becomes clear that it is best to avoid drinking alcohol during breastfeeding. To replenish the body, it is better to take vitamin complexes, eat more vegetables, solving this issue without harm to the health of the crumbs.

The health of the child is the most important

The baby's body suffers from any alcohol drunk by the mother. To ensure that alcohol does not enter the milk, the following guidelines must be followed:

The use of any new product for the child should begin when the baby is three months old, and his digestive tract learns to filter substances hazardous to health.
A nursing mother should not consume more than 200 ml of alcoholic and 500 ml of non-alcoholic beer per day.
You should feed the baby right before drinking beer, then wait until alcohol completely leaves the blood within 1-1.5 hours.

It should be remembered that the health and proper development of the child is in the hands of his mother. No need to subject a small organism to such tests. In addition, “having absorbed alcohol with mother’s milk”, the baby will remember its taste well on a subconscious level. Growing up, having sipped a bottle of beer, a teenager will experience a pleasant feeling of calmness and peace, as there will be associations with mother's milk coming from childhood. The person may become addicted to drinking later on. Advice to any mother who is breastfeeding a baby: do not take risks because of your desire to drink, nothing good will happen for the baby, only harm.

For most breastfeeding mothers, alcohol is a forbidden product. However, among young parents, rumors stubbornly circulate about the fabulous effects of beer on lactation. In addition, there are many brands of non-alcoholic beer on sale now. But will it help increase the amount of milk? Let's think about this topic together.

Photobank Lori

There is not a single study that has proven the benefits of beer for increasing lactation. It contains various substances that can affect milk production, but this effect can be both beneficial and unsafe.

All the beneficial substances that are contained in beer can be obtained from other products. Harmful elements, such as fusel oils, nullify all the "benefit" of this drink.

A nursing mother, without harm to the baby's health, can drink no more than 250 ml of weak beer per day (with an alcohol content of 6% or less) or a maximum of 500 ml of non-alcoholic beer. It is also important that the child is already 3 months old by this time, and that he is healthy, and beer is consumed only occasionally.

beer autosuggestion

Many nursing mothers say that after drinking beer, they felt a strong rush of milk. Some even recommend that girlfriends who have lactation problems drink it to increase their milk supply.

In fact, beer has no magical properties. A rush of milk happens in women from hot drinks, and from massage of the cervical-collar zone, and in the sauna, and even at the moment when a loving mother looks at a photo of her baby while at work!

It is provided by the hormone oxytocin, which is most actively produced in the body in response to breastfeeding by a child, and also under the influence of heat, relaxing massage, stroking, and even just pleasant emotions.

The feeling of a rush of milk when drinking beer may be associated with vasodilation and relaxation of the milk ducts, into which milk begins to flow sharply from the milk lobules. Another option is that this feeling is simply an indicator of the pleasure that a nursing mother experiences when she allows herself a delicious, but “forbidden” drink.

Only the first glass of beer during breastfeeding can work this way, which does not increase blood alcohol content by much. As soon as its level becomes noticeable, the beer will cause the opposite effect.

Ethyl alcohol has the property of blocking milk flow, as it reduces the level of oxytocin in the blood. It looks like this: the breast seems full, but at the same time, the baby begins to attach to the breast more often and sucks out less milk.

Subjectively, a mother can feel such a state as a rush of a large amount of milk. But the baby gets less of it, because it becomes more difficult to suck - the mammary gland “helps” the child worse in this process.

In addition, if the mother drank more than one glass of beer, and the baby is too small, he may become drowsy. Not only will he not finish eating due to the fact that the milk does not flow well, he will still sleep better under the influence of alcohol.

And then the woman can conclude that the child sleeps well because it is full. Here is one reason why regular beer consumption by breastfeeding mothers can lead to the fact that babies begin to gain weight worse.

Sometimes you can hear that a nursing mother, who was completely indifferent to beer before pregnancy, suddenly begins to reach for it after childbirth.

The beer has a pleasant bready smell, as it is prepared using brewer's yeast. Our body responds well to this smell, as it is inherent in foods high in vitamin B1 and B2. The first helps a nursing mother to restore strength and improves metabolism, in addition, it improves the tone of the skin, blood vessels and the uterus that contracts after childbirth. Vitamin B2 improves skin renewal. Cracked nipples in some cases may be due to its lack.

In addition, brewer's yeast contains a substance that, under the action of sunlight on the skin, can turn into vitamin D2, which is extremely useful for strengthening the bones and teeth of the nursing mother herself and for the development of her child. In general, a storehouse of benefits in this brewer's yeast. Only in beer their content is minimal.

A balanced diet is the best source of any vitamins. If a nursing mother is “drawn” to beer, it is necessary to increase the proportion of whole grain bread, vegetables, bran, meat, dairy products in the diet. You can use pharmacy brewer's yeast as a vitamin supplement (but only after consulting a doctor).

Even a small amount of ethyl alcohol and fusel oils, which are contained in beer, will do more harm to the body than a handful of vitamins and minerals from a glass of this drink. Moreover, long-term storage beer does not have any useful properties at all, and preservatives and flavors in combination with alcohol can have the most unpredictable effect. So for those of us who drink beer while breastfeeding for pleasure, don't plead its dubious health benefits. But if a few sips can bring pleasure to a nursing mother, she can afford them. The main thing is not to harm either the baby or yourself.

Beer Safety Rules

Non-alcoholic beer contains 0.5 to 1.5% alcohol. This is slightly more than in kefir, but less than in live kvass. If the child does not react to carbon dioxide, which is present in beer, and he does not have an allergic reaction to hops or other components of beer, then 500 ml of non-alcoholic beer will not affect either mother's lactation or the baby's well-being.

Beer with a low alcohol content (up to 6%) in the amount of 250 ml will be excreted from the body in 1-1.5 hours, and then there will be no alcohol left in breast milk at all, so there is no need to express and pour it out.

To ensure that alcohol and other unsafe substances enter milk, the following rules must be followed:
- it is better to start any tastings when the baby is 3 months old and his intestines begin to filter harmful substances better;
- a portion of alcoholic beer for a nursing mother should not exceed 250 ml, and non-alcoholic - 500 ml per day;
- Mom should feed the child right before drinking beer, and then wait until the alcohol is completely removed from the blood (this process takes 1-1.5 hours);
- if a woman feels very intoxicated even from a sip of beer, we can talk about individual intolerance to alcohol or lack of enzymes for its absorption in the body. Then alcoholic drinks in any quantity will be dangerous for both her and her baby.

Many young mothers and even some doctors argue that in small quantities, breastfeeding beer is not only completely harmless to the health of the baby, but also brings certain benefits, since it helps to increase the production of milk by the nursing mother. And if so, then after a long abstinence during pregnancy, why not take your soul away. But is it really so?

1

Shortly after giving birth, many women suddenly develop a strong craving for beer. It is for a foamy drink, and not for vodka, wine or other alcoholic beverages. Moreover, in the vast majority of women, this craving is experienced by women who were completely indifferent to beer before the birth of a child.

The culprit of such a craving is the fragrant, fragrant, bready smell of a foamy drink. The smell of other alcoholic beverages in the minds of nursing mothers is associated with alcohol, so they are unconditionally taboo. But the smell of beer is subconsciously associated primarily with bread, which cannot harm a baby in mother's milk.

Foamy drink with bread aroma

Under normal conditions, beer in small quantities really does much more good than harm. However, this statement is true only for natural beer, and not for beer products made from powder, from which the shelves of modern stores are breaking.

Natural beer is made useful by the brewer's yeast that is rich in vitamins B1, B2 and D2. B1 promotes metabolism in the body, helping to restore strength faster. B2 promotes skin cell renewal, improving appearance. D2 is important for normal hair growth. It is these properties of these vitamins that gave rise to the theory of the usefulness of beer for the development of babies. However, its supporters do not take into account one important circumstance - in addition to brewer's yeast, the drink also contains a considerable amount of fusel oils, which negate all the possible benefits of beer for kids.

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2

Another argument in favor of drinking a foamy drink, some mothers consider the statement that it is able to increase the production of milk in the body of a nursing mother. However, the vast majority of physicians are convinced that an imaginary increase in lactation is nothing more than ordinary self-hypnosis.

Modern scientific research has proven that beer can accumulate in the tissues of the body, due to which they begin to swell and stretch. It was the feeling of swelling and heaviness in the breast of a nursing mother after drinking beer that created the myth of adding milk. In fact, beer tends to retain any liquids in the body, including mother's milk. Therefore, the child, in order to suck the right amount of milk from the mother's breast, has to work hard.

No one undertakes to dispute the fact that in the first months the baby receives all the substances necessary for life along with mother's milk. Alcohol, especially in the first 3-4 months of life, in which the baby's liver and intestines are not yet functioning properly, is categorically contraindicated for him. Therefore, the question: whether or not to drink beer for a nursing mother should be considered exclusively from these positions.

Beer for a breastfeeding mother

And the facts are as follows: if a woman of average height and build drinks 250 ml of natural beer with a strength of 5-6%, then about 0.3 ppm of alcohol will immediately enter her bloodstream. The same amount of alcohol will be in her milk. But if a woman feeds a child 3 hours after drinking beer, then there will be no alcohol in her blood or milk. During this time, the body will have time to completely cleanse itself, so there will be no harm to the baby.

It will not be possible to speed up the purification of milk from alcohol by decanting - since alcohol will remain in the body, it will also be present in the newly formed milk. Although some fairly authoritative sources, for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics and La Leche League (a society for the support of nursing mothers, which is the official consultant of WHO and UNICEF in pediatrics), claim that you can feed almost immediately after drinking a glass of beer.

Their arguments: slight intoxication occurs at 0.5 ppm, and since a drunk glass of beer does not significantly “get” alcohol to this value, this state cannot be considered intoxication, therefore it does not pose any danger to the child.

3

The desire of a woman to relax a little after a long abstinence is understandable. But still, first of all, you need to take care of the health of the child. Therefore, if you still decide to drink a foamy drink, play it safe, adhering to a few rules:

feed the child before drinking beer, and spend the next feeding no earlier than 1.5-2 hours after drinking;
do not drink on an empty stomach, otherwise you will quickly get drunk;
decant before drinking alcohol - if the child wakes up before your body is cleansed of alcohol, you will have something to feed him;
correlate what you drink with your weight: the lower the weight, the longer it will take the body to get rid of alcohol.

Drinking beer during meals

If you are irresistibly "pulled" to drink beer, you must first reconsider your diet.

Often, such a craving occurs in a woman on a subconscious level due to a lack of certain trace elements and vitamins in the diet, primarily group B. First of all, you need to increase the amount of whole grain bread, dairy products, vegetables and fruits in the diet. To increase the amount of milk, nursing mothers need to drink more hot tea, juice, milk.

If a change in diet does not help, then it is better to drink, the percentage of alcohol in which is 3-4 times less. Better yet, replace it with kefir or bread kvass. They contain approximately the same percentage of alcohol as beer, but the benefits from them will certainly be incomparably greater. Health to you and your child!

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